Matthew McLean

Teaching and Research Interests

The heart of my research is the scholarly culture of the late Renaissance and early Reformation era.  I worked first of all on humanism and international humanist networks centred upon Reformed Basel, and studied works of cosmography as expressions of early modern history writing, geography and cartography, with a focus upon the intersection between traditional knowledge, scientific enquiry and religion. 

More recently I have worked on Bible scholarship and the culture of translation among those same networks of humanist scholars, and the remarkable body of learning which they produced.  I am working on a study of the new Reformed Latin translations of the Bible in the sixteenth century, each of which speaks to a particular moment of religious, cultural or political crisis.

My teaching covers aspects of European history, chiefly the intellectual and social developments of the northern Renaissance and the Reformation.